(Istanbul) A 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit southern Turkey and neighboring Syria on Monday, killing more than 120 people in both countries and causing significant damage, according to initial reports.
At least 76 people have been killed in Turkey across seven different provinces, according to the government’s disaster management agency (AFAD), and at least 50 others have lost their lives in Syria, according to Syrian state media.
More than 600 people were injured in the two countries, the same sources said.
PHOTO ASSOCIATED PRESS STAFF, ASSOCIATED PRESS
According to the American seismological institute USGS, the earthquake took place at 4:17 a.m. local time (8:17 p.m. Eastern time), at a depth of about 17.9 kilometers.
The epicenter is located in the district of Pazarcik, in the province of Kahramanmaras, in the south-east of the country, about 60 km as the crow flies from the Syrian border.
This earthquake is the largest in Turkey since the earthquake of August 17, 1999, which caused the death of 17,000 people, including a thousand in Istanbul.
PHOTO DEPO PHOTOS, REUTERS
A man walks past a collapsed building after an earthquake in Malatya.
Twenty-eight people were killed in Adiyaman province, its governor announced on Monday, citing around 100 collapsed buildings.
At least 23 people have been killed and 420 others injured in Malatya province, its governor told public broadcaster TRT.
PHOTO REUTERS TV, REUTERS
People search through rubble after an earthquake in Diyarbakir, Turkey.
The governor of Sanliurfa meanwhile reported 18 dead and 30 injured in his province.
At least six other people were killed in Diyarbakir province, its governor said.
“We hear voices here and there. We believe that maybe 200 people are under the rubble,” said a rescue worker dispatched to a destroyed building in Diyarbakir, according to images broadcast on the NTV channel.
According to AFAD, the earthquake that occurred overnight had a magnitude of 7.4 and a depth of 7 km.
The tremors, felt across the southeast of the country, were also felt in Lebanon and Cyprus, according to AFP correspondents.
Buildings have been destroyed in many cities in the south-east of the country, according to images broadcast by the Turkish media, raising fears of a much heavier toll.
An AFP correspondent in Diyarbakir, a large city in the south-east of the country, saw a collapsed building, with rescuers hard at work trying to extricate people from the rubble.
On Twitter, Turkish Internet users broadcast the identity and location of people trapped under the rubble in several cities in the south-east of the country.
Adana city mayor Zeydan Karalar said two 17- and 14-storey buildings were destroyed, according to TRT.
At least 50 dead
At least 50 people have been killed in collapsing buildings following the massive earthquake that hit Syria at dawn on Monday with its epicenter in Turkey, according to state media and hospitals.
According to an official from the Ministry of Health, quoted by the official Sana agency, 42 dead and more than 200 injured have been recorded in Aleppo, the second Syrian city in the north of the country, in Hama, in the center, and in Latakia, on the Mediterranean coast.
The toll could rise further, added the official.
In rebel-held areas near the border with Turkey, at least eight people were killed in the collapse of many buildings, a hospital source told AFP.
Rescuers were busy removing civilians trapped under the rubble in several localities near the Turkish border, including Azaz and Al-Bab, and the toll could increase, AFP correspondents noted.
In the rebel area of Idlib in northern Syria, rescuers said they were looking for dozens of people still buried in the rubble.
PHOTO NAYEF AL-ABOUD, FRANCE-PRESSE AGENCY
Rescuers try to extricate a young boy from the rubble of a building that collapsed following an earthquake, in the Syrian border town of Azaz, in northern Aleppo province.
“Our teams are on alert to rescue survivors,” said the White Helmets, rescuers engaged in rebel areas in Syria, on Twitter.
The 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit southern Turkey and neighboring Syria at dawn on Monday, killing nearly 100 people in both countries and causing major damage, according to initial reports.
It caused scenes of panic in northern Syria, where residents rushed outside, despite torrential rains, as well as in neighboring Lebanon, where the tremors were strongly felt.
Call for international help
“All our teams are on alert. We have issued a level four alarm. It is a call, including for international aid,” Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu told the Haberturk channel.
“Our teams are on high alert to rescue survivors,” the Syrian White Helmets, rescuers engaged in rebel areas in Syria, also said on Twitter.
Fifty aftershocks were recorded in Turkey, according to AFAD.
The governor of Gaziantep province called on residents to gather outside despite the cold, while the head of Diyanet, the Turkish public body responsible for supervising worship, called on Turks in need to find refuge in the mosques.
Turkish rescuers and civil defense as well as Syrian firefighters were at work on Monday morning to try to extract possible victims from the rubble, according to local media.
Turkey is located on one of the most active seismic zones in the world.
At the end of November, a magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck northwestern Turkey, injuring around 50 people and causing limited damage, according to the Turkish emergency services.
In January 2020, a 6.7 magnitude earthquake struck the eastern provinces of Elazig and Malatya, killing more than 40 people.
In October of the same year, a magnitude 7 earthquake in the Aegean Sea killed 114 people and injured more than 1,000 in Turkey.